Seapunk Princess [Short Story]

Chapter Two

The Captain

-JACK-

I had two coins to my name, and I had just spent them on a bet I couldn't possibly win. Clearly, my life choices required some fine-tuning. 

The tavern was unbearably warm, sending sweat down my temples and back. It was impossible to hide my unease when the humidity mixed with the ale in my system. I became a readable script. A letter of honest truth. The roar of laughter spilled across the tavern as fast as the drinks being poured, and cut through my mind in quick jabs, much like the knife I kept strapped to my boot. 

"In or out Jack. Can't keep starin' at the cards hopin' for better luck," Vex, the Tavern owner drawled from across the bar, looking bored as he glanced from his set of winning cards to my pair of card-shaped mulch. I couldn't afford to lose. Yet here I was, one breath away from losing the last of my coin.

I forced my grip on the cards to loosen. Hoping that the act would spark an enchantment to ignite them on fire and leave me with a new pair. A moment later, some version of my unspoken prayer sprang to life in the form of a beautiful woman stumbling into the tavern and silencing the rowdy noise. 

Hair the color of fire spilled across her bare shoulders, a sight rarely seen. The visual of so much revealed skin inside a tavern was a dangerous sight. A walking weapon of temptation threatening to ignite a powder keg of hunger and desire from dozens of eyes that all snapped to her at once. 

Sink me*... I thought, yanking my eyes away from her body. 

The woman paused for a moment, taking in the silence with open curiosity. And everyone stared back, just as open with the sight of the woman wearing a pair of trousers—which was already strange for a woman to wear— and no top, which was the strangest part of all. Her hair fell down her body, cutting across her chest, hiding certain curves under her locks of fire. 

Has she lost her mind!

Vex seemed torn between approaching to see if she needed any help, and shutting down the tavern, convinced we were all three sheets to the wind*. Taking advantage of his attempt not to gawk, I snatched the coins from the table, thankful for the distraction, and slipped away from the counter, hoping to sneak out the back door before Vex registered that I had just looted him.

A burly man moved towards the woman, a glint in his eyes that stopped me a foot from the back door. My feet itched to keep moving. To ignore whatever was about to happen. 

But something stirred inside my chest as I watched the woman, her green eyes turning sharp with suspicion. An animalistic territorial-ness bubbled up, erasing my normal instinct for self-preservation and replacing it with a sudden desire to stop the man from getting too close. To stop him from touching her. 

I was moving. Mind protesting, but body acting— rebelling on its own. "What brings such a pretty face 'ear?" The man asked, his voice booming in the deafening silence. 

She didn't answer. Instead, she looked him over, seeming to be assessing him. The man reached forward, intending on placing his hand on her shoulder. "Answer me wen—"

He never finished. A blur and suddenly the man was on his back, thrown across a table, sending mugs scattering across the ground. The woman stood arms raised, chest heaving as she stared down at the man she had thrown like a pouch of letters. 

Then the entire tavern erupted into chaos. Bodies standing all at once. I sprinted towards the woman, shoving men aside to get to her before they could wrap their heads around what they had witnessed. 

She had played her hand like a woman with nothing to lose, and it was time for her to get out before the now red-faced burly man got his wits back.

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Thank you for reading chapter two! I hope you are enjoying the story! Or are at least curious to see where it goes! Add this story to your reading list to know when the next chapter drops!

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Pirate Words:

Sink Me - Holy Crap

Three Sheets to the Wind - Wasted